Being Positive, Selfish, and Getting to Work

September 22nd, 2016 is the last time I published a post on this site. I’ve been away too long. I fell flat on my face, bit the dust, and ran away like a scared puppy. In over five years of writing blog posts and books, I thought I wrote it all. I lost my mojo more than once and this last time it’s stayed hidden. I’m going to attempt to bring it back or just create some new mojo out of nothing. My mind has been preoccupied on other matters. I’ve been busy helping men and women lose weight and fell better at the gym. I’ve been practicing Jiu Jitsu, although I had a four week layoff due to a MRSA or Staph infection that practically crippled my left hand. And of course, I’ve been home with my two little kids who have drove me nuts and then turned me into butter.

During this past year I realized that my attitude and my mindset changed. There were plenty of hard times and my energy was exhausted early being home with my kids. I dealt with some issues that tore me apart, but I think I sowed myself back together. My positive spirit and mental attitude seemed to be lost in space. If you search back through many of my blogs or read my books you’ll see that being positive and upbeat and happy is a major part of my life. In 2016, it wasn’t that way at all. Most of the time, I simply faked it when I had to.

I’ve had trouble over the past five years with my energy and my attitude. During this time I’ve built Activate Fitness in Hackettstown into a great place to be for weight loss and to just feel awesome. I had two kids and was nearly divorced twice. Going through older posts you’ll see where my attitude went up and where it dipped. It’s just a part of our life cycle, but I’m not okay with it. Being positive is rare these days. People are afraid to be positive because so many people are tied down by negative forces that when we show positivity and happiness, they think there’s something wrong with us.

Before my children were born I was a big time fan of Floating and Meditation and when life got hard, I abandoned my practices. I see now how that was foolish and I realize even more now the awesome power of float tanks and meditation. Those two critical components of my positive mental attitude vanished overnight and left me high and dry.

I went to hear a speaker yesterday at our Jiu Jitsu school. His name is Cornell Thomas and he lit the fire under my ass again. One of the best things he said during the hour or so speech was this “Never let doubt stop your do.” and I realized that in 2016, my doubt crushed my do. His energy was great and obviously I borrowed some as I feel different today, but it will be a long road back to where I once was. In the past, I could write through a stream of consciousness up to five thousand words about being positive and happy without taking a piss break. Now, my attention is good for maybe thirty seconds. When I wrote five books, it came easy. It came naturally. The work was fun and it didn’t seem like it took a lot of effort. Today, writing is draining. But I know why.

I need to take a break from certain things in my day to day routine. I need to be selfish and spend more time improving myself so that I can recharge my important energy. I need to stop stressing over working and writing and get on the ground and roll with my kids. Instead of answering the twenty emails I get each day, go to the movies and relax. Instead of being at the gym at five o’clock in the morning, sleep in and get important rest. And that’s another thing, a totally different topic, but something that pisses me off. People wear getting up early as a badge of honor. For the past five years I’ve been getting up super early, most days at four, and while many people claim great benefits from rising early, I think it’s not the best option, for me and my happiness. Many awesome people come to train at my gym at Five O’clock every single day and they love it. For me, it’s crushing. I need sleep and I operate ten times better when I sleep, if not a hundred times better. If you have to wake up early to workout, make sure you get to sleep earlier than normal and do your best to make it the best quality sleep you can.

Remember, living life activated takes work. It takes a lot of work and for many people, like me in 2016, that work feels like it’s not worth it, but at the end of the year when you come up short in your goals and you feel like I felt (exhausted, angry, tired, lazy) you’ll see that the work needed to be fully activated, to be awake and alive, is most definitely worth it.